You could, of course, also merge the desired name onto a set of different background images and get close to the same thing... (Mail, News, Development, ...)

Also (and I just found this out, to great annoyance), each Desktop in the new Spaces is managed by different preferences, so when you change, say, the time interval by which each Desktop cycles its images, it changes for THAT Space alone. The rest cycle by their own rate.

With the ribbon, Microsoft was responding to a very real concern for users. Users were constantly asking for new features - features that were already in the product. They just couldn't find them. Thus the ribbon.

Great point!

This says that Microsoft's products have new features in them that users want (that is a good thing) but can't find (not such a good thing). So, Microsoft has to include those new features in a ribbon so users will know that they are there.

Fail #1: Microsoft does a poor job of making features, needed by users, visible.

Fail #2: Microsoft fails to educate users about new features.

Fail #3: Microsoft tracks use data from user computers (without user permission) to find out how users use their products...so they can effectively design by committee. (where's the outrage?)

Fail #4: Microsoft designs cluttered interface to further confuse users so they can highlight features from last software version in the new version, thus having to only design new interface and not new function...because the new function would be lost behind the old/new features.

IOW, the ribbon (of shame) is their admission that they fail at product design. Design should not get in the way of function. Yet, by their own admission, they are having to redesign Windows so users can use it more easily. And in the process, they are making it more cluttered.

i havent read this article yet...just wanted to post a nice feature in lion. If you wanna launch apps in fullscreen and not use launchpad...move the mouse to the bottom of the screen, pause, and move it down again. BAM...up comes the dock.

Great way to start a comment: "I haven't read the article yet..."

And then follow up with what is actually a bug and portray it as a "bam" feature. When you bring the mouse to the bottom of the screen while in a fullscreen App that dock should come straight up, the fact that it doesn't is a bug. From now on read the article and then comment, please.

Well done Microsoft. You've managed to take the cluttered Aero interface and somehow make it even MORE cluttered.

Are Microsoft's UI designers asleep or just stupid?

The thing is, Apple have had UI all these years and they are doing their darndest to get rid of it. Jobs really must have hated buttons. You tried using a Mac? There are usually about 3 buttons on any given apps toolbar. That means to do almost ANYTHING you have to resort to keyboard shortcuts or fiddling about finding things in the menu. Easier on a desktop but a right pain on a laptop.

M$ know that people are happy clicking on things and it make sense to stick things on a toolbar where they are easily clickable and not hidden in a complex menu system.

That's not a bug, that's by design. A fullscreen app is different than resizing an app to take up all real estate and putting the Dock on autohide. It's done this way because apps often have UI elements at the bottom of the window, and in fullscreen mode this is right next to the Dock.

I for one really really like the ribbon in office. It makes it easy to find new things and makes a lot of tasks really quick and simple. Compared to drop down menus launching popup menus, it is definetely the better solution.

However that explorer menu is way over the top and isn't making anything easier.

Correction to the article though. Windows 95 had a documents and pictures folder. 5 years before OSX.

Finder has historically been one of the most complained about Mac apps, and the "increasingly minimalistic" ground-up rewrite for Lion was utterly underwhelming. I guess "radically departing" from Lion may not be a completely bad thing.

I even bought "the" Finder replacement, PathFinder, which ended up feeling just as kludgy and unintuitive as Finder.

Clearly Apple is envisioning a world where all your apps store their data files in their own iPhoto-like database, preferably in the (their) cloud.

Like Finder, that's great for the drag-and-drop simple folks, but not so great for those of us with multi-faceted lives who prefer to keep our data separated and organized in a way that works best for us.

The sign that you are in a cheap restaurant is a menu with 600 options on it. Perhaps Windows 8 should be called "Diners ate"

Had to use a friends Win laptop and IE and I could not believe how little actual browser window was left between the bulk of upper menus and the disaster below it. It was like looking at the web through Venetian blinds.

Wow. In Lion you finally can! 15 year later after Windows. This just tells me how immature Mac OS is. Well, for me it is still unavailable: my IT department advised us against upgrading to Lion due to some issues.

Yes, that's a feature that's been sorely lacking in MacOS since the beginning. However, it's never been a real issue because windows don't pop open in MacOS out-of-bounds where the resize handle in the corner isn't accessible.

"Maximize" is a crutch that's long been present in Windows. MacOS was designed as a true GUI environment where you work with several open windows simultaneously, enhancing productivity. For example, a common activity is dragging and dropping information from one app to another, like dragging a picture from Photoshop to Word.

The "Optimize" or "Right Size" button in MacOS was designed to adjust the window size to fit its contents (results vary in practice), to quickly 'optimize' all the windows you may be working with. Maximize defeats the purpose of a windowed environment - it's just like going back to DOS (crutch), working with one program at a time (but with pretty icons).

Ironically, MacOS Lion now has a maximize feature, although the implementation is very different from Windows' maximize. In Lion, the OS and any other distractions fade away and the focus is 100% on the content of the maximized 'environment' - maximize in Lion is not a blown up window, it's full screen (no window at all). It also allows you to gesture between full screen and optimized window modes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercury99

Well, if you are in driver seat, would you want your steering weel to be on passenger side? "That's just backasswards."

I see the argument you're in with Tallest Skil, but you both have a point. Let me set some history here: The original MacOS (in the early 80's) was really designed for one monitor. The menu bar was always at the top of the screen, and when you switched between programs, the menu choices change appropriate to the active program. People always knew where to find commands, cause they were always in the same place.

Although Apple pioneered multi-screen desktops in 1987, the single menu bar remained on the primary monitor so users could count on it being in the same place. Under MacOS this made sense. When Apple switched to MacOS X, they had the opportunity to use window bound menus present in each window. They went out of their way to re-create the unified menu bar at the top of the screen. I think it was a foolish mistake. MacOS X was so radically different anyway, introducing window bound menus would not have been a big deal to Mac users, and they could have placed Finder functions into Finder windows and a single icon in the Dock. Oh well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercury99

Yes, I am embarrassed about this one. This just proves my point: Mac caps lock indicator is less explicite: it is icon based vs. the actual text message on Windows. Mac has no tool tip or anything: how a new OS X user suppose to know what that icon means? Bad for usability. Also Mac keeps resetting my user name to my first and last name: very annoying.

I see what you're saying. Many users won't know what the icon means. They'll figure it out though... There are "tool tips" in MacOS, but thankfully, not abused like in Windows. The're soooo prevalent in Windows, they get in the way... The comment about "Mac keeps resetting my user name" makes no sense. When you create a user account, the username is not ever going to automatically change. It will only change if you change it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercury99

Sure you can pin, but how many things can you pin until your sidebar is clattered? 10? Windows Libraries feature is much more powerful: you can pin unlimited number of files and you can create hierarchical nested structure to organize them.

MacOS has a feature called "Smart Folders" that are basically containers for custom search criteria. You create one that 'pins' lets say, all documents that contain the words "smarty pants". Could be hundreds of documents, neatly accessible from one folder in the sidebar.

Alternatively you can create a folder, residing anywhere you want, and drag any files you want to this folder while holding down the option + command keys. This effectivly 'pins' files to this folder. You can drag this folder to the sidebar or the dock, for quick access to all the files 'pinned' to that folder.

On either platform these things are are just shortcuts to the actual files, except for Mac "Smart Folders" which are just active searches. No big deal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercury99

Sure Mac has shortcuts, but Window is more keyboard friendly. For instance can you browse the Mac Apple menu using keyboard? On Windows you can browse the Start Menu. Or can you access any of the Photoshop filters using keyboard only? Teach me a trick, because on Windows you can. In fact, you have keyboard only access to a menu bar on any completely unknown to you windows program.

Windows was designed to navigate the menus & commands with the keyboard, again, as a throwback to DOS - hence Alt+F, etc. The Mac was designed to perform functions with keyboard shortcuts for productivity, not as a means of navigation. Which way is better? I guess it's really a personal prefernce. I prefer to use the keyboard for productive shortcuts because keyboarding for navigation gave way to the GUI (mouse) a long time ago, and that's now giving way to touch interfaces.

But to answer your question - Yes, you can use the keyboard to browse the Apple menu and all the others (in the OS and any program). Press control+F2. Now you can use the arrow keys to navigate through any of the menus, press the return key to select what you want. Many commands have keyboard equivalents, and they're listed right there in the menus just like in Windows. In total, it actually seems like there are more keyboard shortcuts in MacOS X than there are in Windows, not to mention an easy way to customize your own.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Except you can in Lion. Not that anyone has any reason to.

Worthless analogy. Or maybe you're Schrödinger and can sit in both seats at once.

OH, yeah⸮​ MUCH better⸮​ This is the way to do things⸮​

"Hey, guys, I have a great idea. Let's completely ignore all advances in GUI technology since 1982 and just use our keyboards for everything."

Tallest Skil, you're losing your argument because you've resorted to name calling. My suggestion to you is to think it through a bit more, and respond rationally.

It may sound blasphemous, but my favorite file manager is Windows old 3.1 interface. Everything is listed and easy to see. I'm not a big fan of finder at all. Due to iPhoto's insane file management system, I save most of my photos in my "Pictures" folder in finder. However, if I pull one up, hitting the arrow button won't automatically go to the next picture. No, instead I have to select all photos I "might" want to browse and open them in Preview.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the delete button. Seriously, I've selected a file and hit delete, move it to the trash! Don't sit there and beep at me like you don't know what the f*** I want.

Unlearn what you have learned. This is not Windows. The commands you need to learn predate Windows' very existence...

Delete: Delete on the Mac is "left delete", or what would be the "backspace" key in Windows. It is not a command anyway, it's something you do to correct typing errors, not delete files. If you want to delete files that way, you turn it into a command by using the command key: command+delete. It's the same reason the copy command is command+c and not just the 'c' key alone. Make sense? It's Windows that's dysfunctional and inconsistent with keyboard functions.

Pictures: Go to your Pictures folder where you're keeping your photos. Click on one. If you're in column view or Cover Flow view in the Finder, you'll see a preview image of the file. In Cover Flow view, you can resize the Finder window which changes the size of the preview. If you want an even better preview, click on one of your pictures and then press the space bar. Viola! In any case, use the arrow keys and it will move to the next picture, you do NOT have to select all the images and open them in the program called "Preview".

iPhoto: As for iPhoto, it does not incorporate a file manager (and I hate that). It stores photos in a database structure. There are some advantages and disadvantages of that. One advantage is non-destructive editing. One disadvantage is not being able to move image files around in the filesystem or rename them (changing a photo's name in iPhoto doesn't rename the image file, it just keeps an association to that name in its database). If you don't like iPhoto, use a different program. There are many.

Due to iPhoto's insane file management system, I save most of my photos in my "Pictures" folder in finder. However, if I pull one up, hitting the arrow button won't automatically go to the next picture. No, instead I have to select all photos I "might" want to browse and open them in Preview.

It may be hard to change old habit, but the notion of micro managing photos is flawed and without merit. With database-based photo management software like iPhoto, you can always recreate physical folder structure if so desired (e.g., for migrating to another software), but it makes a lot more sense to let it manage using more meaningful metaphors such as albums, events, and projects.

For instance, you may currently prefer to organize photos as follows: /Year/Location (e.g., /2011/Honolulu).

But later on, you may decide that it makes more sense to organize as follows: /Camera/Year/Month/Location

If you were manning photos manually, that could be very time consuming to execute. With database-based tools, it takes just minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wixostrix

Cut, Copy, and Paste function differently than Move To and Copy To. Like the Send To option when your right-click a file, they probably have system-defined selections such as, "Desktop", "Documents", "Removable Disk", etc.

Open may "open" a picture in a photo viewer while "edit" may open it in image manifulation program. Open a webpage in the browser, edit in site builder program. Get it?

Why should cut, copy, and paste be different from move to and copy to? Move to and copy to can be designed to move or copy files and folders to anywhere you want. Ditto for open and edit (hold down drop down arrow to open in alternate apps, for instance).

I am not a ribbon hater. Ribbons work in complex apps with many features such as Office, helping you discover new and/or advanced features. But Explorer is a relatively simple app. Having redundant features on its ribbon, and in seemingly random order (most used functions should appear first) is irrational and often hinders usability than helping.

The thing is, Apple have had UI all these years and they are doing their darndest to get rid of it. Jobs really must have hated buttons. You tried using a Mac? There are usually about 3 buttons on any given apps toolbar. That means to do almost ANYTHING you have to resort to keyboard shortcuts or fiddling about finding things in the menu. Easier on a desktop but a right pain on a laptop.

M$ know that people are happy clicking on things and it make sense to stick things on a toolbar where they are easily clickable and not hidden in a complex menu system.

Apple has always kept the interface simple for new users. There are lots of things you can do without keyboard shortcuts or going to menus. If you want lots of buttons to click on, it's easy. Select "Customize Toolbar" from the view menu. There you go, buttons galore, and you can arrange them however you want them to be.

Yes, MacOS has a more minimalist design, but that is good. With MacOS X there are also lots of things that don't have to be done anymore - you get straight to productive work instead of having to fiddle around with the OS.

Having used Windows for many years, I might not be 100% objective, but I feel that Explorer is vastly superior to Finder for anyone who actually uses the file system. As a developer and enterprise worker, I routinely deal with hundreds of files. Finder makes saving and opening files much more difficult than it should be. An indication of Finder weakness is the number of Finder add ons that have found a market. You just don't see that among Windows users. Another indication is the typical Mac user's overloaded desktop.

That said, I'm not overly impressed with the ribbon.

1...i dont have anything on my desktop. Not one folder...other than the occasional screenshot.

2... the MS blog even mentions the huge array of third party software to apply to explorer.

3...i do agree with you but your points were wrong. you should have mentioned FTFF or no up button. However, why does a full c: drive scan on windows take a few seconds? im actually pussled by that one...

I honestly don't mind Microsoft's use of the ribbon. I prefer OSX, but it is wise that Microsoft is trying to differentiate itself. You can't ridicule Microsoft from copying Apple, but then condemn it for trying to find its own voice (like it did with Windows Phone 7).

My problem with the ribbon interface is that it is so far removed from how the OS used to work, it is unsettling trying to find how to perform common commands.

Apple and M$ are creating UIs for dummies. None of the new 'features' in Lion really help the power user. It's all eye candy and pillows for iOS users. Same thing with this ribbon interface: its for people who can't figure out how to use menus or remember command keys. Apple wants to take away our access to the file system and sell all software through a bubble gum machine (with prices to match). Welcome to the brave new world of lowest common denominator computing. Its colorful and shiny but it makes me a little ill.

Apple and M$ are creating UIs for dummies. None of the new 'features' in Lion really help the power user. It's all eye candy and pillows for iOS users. Same thing with this ribbon interface: its for people who can't figure out how to use menus or remember command keys. Apple wants to take away our access to the file system and sell all software through a bubble gum machine (with prices to match). Welcome to the brave new world of lowest common denominator computing. Its colorful and shiny but it makes me a little ill.

Microsoft aren't designing so much for "dummies" or even the techno-illiterate (although they do reap the benefits).

They are designing for people that see computers as a tool rather than a hobby, that care more about the destination than the journey.

One of the worlds leading geneticists is out there at the moment, writing up a paper that's going to land them a nobel prize. Do you really think they want to spend time tweaking their settings or trying to eek a bit of extra performance from their PC?

You are (like me) a power user, and like it or not we have been marginalized.

At Microsoft the days of engineers coding UI's for power users is well and truly gone.

Finally, if you haven't, you need to bite the bullet and buy a Magic Trackpad if you're using a desktop. Learn the gestures, especially the three-finger side-to-side gestures and the swipe-up/down gestures used to bring up MC and the application window view.

To each their own. I gladly sacrificed three finger swipe to use three fingers to drag (and draw/select/etc) without having ever to physically depress the magic trackpad "button" (these options are mutually exclusive in Lion's preferences).

And I REALLY REALLY miss the ability to activate expose on all 16 desktops at once. With MC, Expose is enabled only on the currently selected Desktop (yes, you can Ctrl+left/right to move between Desktops while MC is enabled to find hidden windows on each Desktop, but this is much less useful than seeing ALL windows on ALL Desktops in Snow Leopard when Expose is enabled while Spaces is also enabled). Not to mention MC turns the act of moving a window from one space to another into a ( potentially ) multi-step affair since you can no longer directly drag windows between the miniaturized representations of the desktops while MC is enabled. Or the irksome 1 second delay after switching desktops while they switch from the sneaky static image to realtime (hopefully this is just a temporary hack on Apple's part). I'm sure they'll improve all this with time though. Sorry for the mini-rant :-)

It may be hard to change old habit, but the notion of micro managing photos is flawed and without merit. With database-based photo management software like iPhoto, you can always recreate physical folder structure if so desired (e.g., for migrating to another software), but it makes a lot more sense to let it manage using more meaningful metaphors such as albums, events, and projects.

I'm all for photo management software but I don't think the software should take over your pictures. In iPhoto things like people and description tags aren't written to the files meta-data. So in the event you lose your database, you will have to retag them. I also hear moving them around is a pain. Something about having to pull them out of iPhoto to the Finder before you can copy them, maybe you can clarify. Windows Live Photo Gallery doesn't make you import your pictures, it leaves them be in the folders they are in and when you tag the pictures, the tags will be retained even if you move them to a different computer. It's also nice because if you go to a folder in Windows Explorer and type someones name in the search, if they are tagged in any of the pictures, they will show in the results, same for description tags

Quote:

Why should cut, copy, and paste be different from move to and copy to? Move to and copy to can be designed to move or copy files and folders to anywhere you want. Ditto for open and edit (hold down drop down arrow to open in alternate apps, for instance).

When you think about a user using touch it makes more sense. If you have two windows open you can easily tap "select all", "copy", then "paste" in the other window. If you have just the one windows open you can simply tap "select all", "copy to" then select the folder you want to move it to. The ribbon also makes it relatively easy for novice users complete a task that would require explaining. Like my first example above. Tell someone to select all the items and move them to the documents folder in the Finder. Instead of seeing the clearly labeled buttons. They will have to start drilling through the menu bar (or click and drag, but they're likely to not know to do that), navigate to the documents folder, and drag and drop.

Why should cut, copy, and paste be different from move to and copy to? Move to and copy to can be designed to move or copy files and folders to anywhere you want. Ditto for open and edit (hold down drop down arrow to open in alternate apps, for instance).

If you want to move a file then you want to move it. Cut/copy/paste accomplishes the same goal but is less intuitive. Most people who move from Windows to Mac seem to struggle with this because its not just different from Windows its also frankly less intuitive. Its not an obstacle that cannot be overcome but its puzzling to many how Apple could have such an awkward method of manging files when most everything else is so much more intuitive.

In general, Finder has never been a strong point of OSX IMO. It works but there are other aspects of OSX that make it shine and make it superior to Windows and Linux.

Quote:

Originally Posted by filburt

. But Explorer is a relatively simple app. Having redundant features on its ribbon, and in seemingly random order (most used functions should appear first) is irrational and often hinders usability than helping.

This. I don't know why MS would muck up WE. Its one of the few areas of Windows that works well for what its intended use is. Making it more complicated makes it worse IMO.

In general, Finder has never been a strong point of OSX IMO. It works but there are other aspects of OSX that make it shine and make it superior to Windows and Linux.

IMHO, the strongest piece of Finder is that pretty much everything is controllable through AppleScript. Everything in OS X is an object within a hierarchy of objects and this allows for some surprisingly powerful user engagement. It's quite easy, for example, to write a Service in Automator that runs an AppleScript which allows you to right-click on a file and move it 8 levels deep into your Dropbox folder, or assign metadata to it so it's picked up by a Smart Folder, or both. Admittedly (and sadly) most folks don't delve much into this.

Yes, that's a feature that's been sorely lacking in MacOS since the beginning. However, it's never been a real issue because windows don't pop open in MacOS out-of-bounds where the resize handle in the corner isn't accessible.

I like to move windows around and that's when this feature is missing for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mytdave

"Maximize" is a crutch that's long been present in Windows. MacOS was designed as a true GUI environment where you work with several open windows simultaneously, enhancing productivity. For example, a common activity is dragging and dropping information from one app to another, like dragging a picture from Photoshop to Word.

Drag and drop works just as well in Windows - i use it occasionally as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mytdave

Although Apple pioneered multi-screen desktops in 1987, the single menu bar remained on the primary monitor so users could count on it being in the same place. Under MacOS this made sense. When Apple switched to MacOS X, they had the opportunity to use window bound menus present in each window. They went out of their way to re-create the unified menu bar at the top of the screen. I think it was a foolish mistake. MacOS X was so radically different anyway, introducing window bound menus would not have been a big deal to Mac users, and they could have placed Finder functions into Finder windows and a single icon in the Dock. Oh well.

I found some 3rd party utility to address that: it creates a clone menu on the secondary monitor. Works well, except after I reboot my Mac it is deactivated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mytdave

I see what you're saying. Many users won't know what the icon means. They'll figure it out though...

Sure, but "don't make me think" is a golden rule of usability. And if Apple is using verbal indicator for the password error, why not be consistant with the caps locked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mytdave

The comment about "Mac keeps resetting my user name" makes no sense. When you create a user account, the username is not ever going to automatically change. It will only change if you change it.

Not sure why it's happening: my IT support guy said "Macs do that". But the issue related perhaps to some 3rd party security software.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mytdave

MacOS has a feature called "Smart Folders" that are basically containers for custom search criteria. You create one that 'pins' lets say, all documents that contain the words "smarty pants". Could be hundreds of documents, neatly accessible from one folder in the sidebar.

I have to look into Smart Folders. I guess it is similar to libraries but usability is not quite as obvious to me. I'd like to be able to create Smart Folders with drag and drop, rather then search, perhaps it's possible.

Oh, and CultOfMac mentioned that the buttons on the new Windows Explorer, according to Microsoft's own research, will be used by less than 50% of users. And they're still putting them on there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaim2

Research on Windows 7 button usage contains no information about buttons they've added in Windows 8?

Shocking!

Actually, (s)he's right - someone from MS specifically said that since so few people use the buttons in the ribbon now, they want to add more features to it to increase it's usage. Typical Microshafting, forcing people to do things their way rather than catering to their customers.